A lot of regions in the world have their own signature sport such as South America and Europe with football, Australia and New Zealand with their rugby, and South Asian countries with cricket. Southeast Asia has our own signature sport which is unfortunately almost unheard of in other parts of the globe called sepak takraw.
Exhilarating Combination of Football and Volleyball
If you witness one of the games of sepak takraw for the first time, it might be a bizarre spectacle since this sport is played by kicking a rattan ball just like football, yet the court has a net in the middle of both teams just like volleyball. Each team would have three players which would be responsible for the left inside, right inside and the back.
Even though the players would use their feet to control the ball, but sepak takraw is way more similar to volleyball than it is to football. This is because just like a volleyball match, the players of sepak takraw only have maximum three touches after the ball is served to try to get the back ball and make a point, while making sure that the ball doesn’t touch the floor.
While it is quite unusual, but sepak takraw is also an amazing sport to watch due to the various acrobatic kicks and gravity-defying moves that could make you gasp. To make points, the famous bicycle kick is often performed. But unlike the bicycle kick in football where the kicker could just land on their back, the athletes of sepak takraw have to be even more athletic than that and land on their feet.
Intense Debate on Its Origin
Sepak takraw is a quite popular sport across Southeast Asia, but people are still debating about its actual origin since several Southeast Asian countries claim that this sport was originated on their land. Nevertheless, some people agree at some point that this sport was developed from a Chinese military drill called Cuju.
In Cuju, Chinese soldiers would kick a feathered shuttlecock with a couple of other soldiers and try their best to keep it off the floor as long as they could. People believed that commercial contact with China was responsible on how this game was introduced to Southeast Asia and then evolved into what we know as sepak takraw today.
Efforts of Standardization
Since almost every Southeast Asian countries claim to be the place where this sport originated, the name and the rules of the game are also different in each country. In Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and parts of Indonesia it’s called ‘sepak raga’, in the Philippines it’s called ‘sipa’, ‘takraw’ in Thailand, ‘da cau’ in Viet Nam, and ‘kator’ in Laos.
Finally, in 1960 several representatives from Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Laos held a gathering in Kuala Lumpur to try to discuss about standardizing the sport in order to make it go global.
Just like expected, a fierce debate erupted but finally, they were able to reach a consensus and since then, the sport is officially called ‘sepak takraw’ to honor the name differences across Southeast Asia.
Sepak Takraw and How Young People Can Help Popularize It
Sepak takraw serves as a coin with both sides for young people. On one side, this sport is so unique and exciting which speaks to young people who want to try something different. On the other side, sepak takraw is a quite complicated and difficult sport to master and with much less coverage and publications than other more popular sports.
During the latest Olympic in Paris, some people just finding out about sepak takraw on social media and were amazed by the complexity and athleticism of the sport. A lot of them then wondered: “why isn’t this sport on the Olympics?” Unfortunately, sepak takraw wouldn’t be featured in the Olympics any time soon.
This is because while recognized by the IOC or International Olympic Committee, sepak takraw doesn’t have enough federations around the world. In order to be featured in the Olympics, a sport must have at least 75 federations, and sepak takraw hasn’t even hit 50 federations yet. But we shouldn’t lose hope after how breakdancing was featured for the first time in the Paris Olympics lately.
Breakdancing was included in the Paris Olympics in order to be more appealing to younger viewers. From that, we could learn that promoting sepak takraw is crucial to help it getting more recognition worldwide and young people are the best to do it. Until sepak takraw has 75 federations or the IOC change the rules, sepak takraw might not be in the Olympics, but will always be loved dearly by Southeast Asians.
